day no. 16,633: the fruit from the tree and the fullness of the Law

"Just as the ten commandments are summarized by the two great commandments — love God and love your neighbor — so they are summarized by the one great commandment before the Fall, which was to not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge." — Douglas Wilson, Westminster Systematics

Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lest you die is to say:

(1) you shall have no other gods before the One who issued this clear command,

(2) how that God is to be worshiped,

(3) that His Name is as holy as His commandments are His glory,

(4) rest in the goodness of His commands by eating from any of the other trees,

(5) honor the Father in Heaven by honoring His commandments on earth,

(6) respect life by not taking a human life by taking the fruit,

(7) keep the garden bed pure and keep adulterous fruit out of the covenant cupboard,

(8) acknowledge the fruit of Another by refusing to see it as yours,

(9) testify to the truth of His Word and don't add to or take anything away from it,

(10) be content with what God gives and be happy for those to whom He has given.

The fruit of that tree was God's and not to be consumed. It was set aside, like a tithe, for Him alone. In not eating that fruit, one kept the entire Decalogue. In that one law, all Law lived. The fruit from the tree contained the fullness of the Law. In any of God's ordinances all of His glory is revealed.

James 2:10

For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

In any law, all the Law lives.

day no. 16,632: love your next generation neighbor

"When you discipline your children correctly, you are loving your grandchildren." — Douglas Wilson, Why Children Matter

A man loves his great grandchildren by teaching his children to teach their children to teach their children. If you raise your children well, you will get to enjoy your grandchildren. If you do not raise your children well, you will have to raise your grandchildren. 

You do not love your next generational neighbor by failing to discipline their parents. If you are called to love those living next door geographically, you are called to love those living next generationally. Your children need you to be their parents so that they can parent their children someday. Your grandchildren will be owed the discipline and instruction of the Lord which means you must provide it to their parents. 

Psalm 78:4-7

We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.

You cannot teach your grandchildren to remember the Lord's commands by forgetting to obey them. You cannot teach a future generation the value of the Lord by refusing to acknowledge it before the current one.

day no. 16,631: culture is the liturgy of livelihood

"Liturgies train our loves by aiming them toward a certain telos." — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

No one falls in love. Affection is not the end result of inattention. You do not "fall for" anything you haven't been preparing to embrace. You don't spend your entire life feeding an affection for virtue and then fall head over heels for vice. You do not mull over an affinity for sports cars and then fall in love with a minivan. You don't love by accident. You can fall in lust, but not in love.

How we organize our days and how we regularize our delights determines our affections. It trains our hearts in a particular direction. You do not backslide into affection. You fall, in that sense, for what you have been hoping to trip into.

"The reason culture trains our heart is that, in a sense, it is a type of liturgy." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Culture is a kind of repetition. It is a smell that always accompanies a moment, a flavor that pairs with a routine. Culture is a liturgy of livelihood. It trains our affections in a certain direction. It provides the grammar of delight and the logic of loveliness. It provides the scripts and sets the expectations. 

"You can't not love."  — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

Love is inescapable. Liturgy is inescapable. Culture is inescapable. You will love something. You will organize your days around something. Your will train your affections towards something.

"Christian culture is putting God's ethics into public action." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Christendom is Christ's commands incarnate. It is not merely private sentiment. Jesus is not only the Lord of the few inches between your ears, He is Lord and Savior of every inch inside of you and the world around you in which you live, move, and have your being.

Christendom is Christian civilization organized around a Christian calendar, fueled by a Christian culture, and built on a Christian foundation.

1 Corinthians 3:10-11

But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

day no. 16,630: if the dam don't hold

"If you can hold back the culture's influence long enough so that you can change it before it changes your children, you should stay. If not, you have no choice but to make some sort of change." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

If your dam won't hold, you have to move to higher ground. If your walls cannot keep the evil out, you have to evacuate. The Gospel of God will conquer the world, but some fronts may be temporarily lost in the course of the campaign. You cannot begin by taking Berlin. Nor can you initially expect to keep Berlin out of your backyard if you live within shouting distance. You cannot defend that plot of land by dying in it. You must retreat and regroup in order to return with the Allies to your homeland. It will be won back and Berlin will fall, but only by those who consolidated their forces outside its city limits.

day no. 16,629: Christ or the Christless

"If we are to be truly free, we must be bound to the laws of words of God. This is because the only alternative to submission to Christ is submission to Christless men." — Douglas Wilson, Westminster Systematics

Imposition is inescapable. Someone will submit to someone else. The world is hierarchical. Authority is hard-wired into it. Submission, therefore, is also inescapable. We will either submit to the Christ or to the Christless. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. His law is liberty. His Word is truth. Where He isn't there is tyranny, overreach, slavery, addiction, and the gnashing of teeth ad infinitum.

James 1:25

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

Good works are acts of gratitude. They are grace-fueled and full of grit. The Christian gets after it only after getting got. He takes hold because he has been held.

Tenacity is tangible thanksgiving.

Perseverance is palpable praise.

day no. 16,628: whether for correction or for lovingkindness

Job 37:13

He causeth it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy.

Whether for correction or for loving kindness, Christ causes all to occur. Nothing escapes His notice and everything's end is His intention. Whatever comes, He causeth it. Our options are either (1) the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, or (2) curse God and die. But we cannot imagine an outcome outside of His attention. We can wonder why, but we cannot wonder if. God is sovereign and His will cannot be thwarted.

Isaiah 14:27

For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

day no. 16,627: continual and irreconcilable war

"This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part; whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." — Westminster Confession of Faith, 13.2

The Christian life is one of continual and irreconcilable war.  Because of sin, there is enmity. It was introduced by God the Father in the fallout of the Fall.

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Since that day, the sons of Eve have been at war with the seed of the serpent, wherever it is found. Christ came to conquer as far as the curse is found. This includes the dragon without and the dragon within. The Christian life is one of unending warfare. It is killing sin wherever it is conceived inside us (James 1:15) and taking it captive for Christ wherever it is conceived around us (2 Cor. 10:3-5).

Galatians 5:17

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

There will be warfare. There will be contradiction. There will be words and there will be backchat. Imposing wills will clash with only one will prevailing at the expense of the other. The Spirit will not stop until the world, the flesh, and the devil have been fully vanquished. The flesh will not cease fire. It will not surrender. But neither will the Spirit and God's guns will outflank the flesh, lay waste the world, and demolish the devil.

God shall arise and by His might

Put all His enemies to flight

With shame and consternation.

His haters, haughty though they be,

Shall at His august presence flee

In utter desolation;

For when Jehovah shall appear,

He shall consume, afar and near,

All those that evil cherish.

As smoke before his dreadful ire,

As wax is molten by the fire,

So shall the wicked perish.

Psalm 68